I seem to wake often wake badly, even on holiday. The difference is on holiday there is space, time and lovely activities to help pull oneself together. The shops are interesting in Greece. Corner cafes / supermarkets have no medications (not even Panado or Savlon). But they have every kind of booze. We buy mastika here which is beautiful (and lovely late night tot before bed). They stores tend to have rough untidy piles of bread, meats and some vegetables.

Christos Naches is quite large, as Ikarian island villages go. It is the capital of this area and hosts many of their festivals. There are quite a lot of people and many cats around. It is a pretty village, with a large flat pedestrian square and side paths between shops (unusual here in the mountains where everything is sloped). The people stare a bit suspiciously but the woman in the co-operative are very friendly. As usual we aren't sure where to go. We park where we can and wander. Luckily the coop is well labeled and quite busy.

It’s a tiny inside space - just corridor between the counter and shelves with produce against the wall. They have a few tables set up outside on the pedestrian street where we have the amazing cake and coffee. And these ladies, with such skill, are trying to raise funds (only about half a million rand) to buy property and facilities for training and salaries. And they’re on a tiny island!

I’d heard about the walks on Ikaria. It is known, where it is known, as the nature lover’s island choice. Which is one of the reasons we chose it. And why we bought the map. I’d read you could buy trail guides.

Unfortunately the walks are very badly described and signposted. The whole time we fail to find any properly . eg at the petrified oaks on top of the mountains and this next bit. Even with Reinhardt’s help we took ages and some guesswork to find the path. Would have loved to have finished it but it would have taken unknown hours and we had no time.

We never found anywhere to swim in Ikaria except the sea, even though it looked like we should (And A swam in the kloof-swamp, but it was dodgy). The non-salt water is so biotic it’s off-putting.